The event is the ultimate must-attend show for call and contact centre professionals looking to develop and learn from industry experts who know how to succeed in the world of customer engagement.

The event is co located alongside B2B Marketing Expo, B2C Marketing Expo, Marketing Technology Expo and the Sales Innovation Expo - with over 700 exhibitors and 500 seminars taking place across all shows, all under one roof. Each event compliments one another but individually maintains their own unique and invaluable identity.

Contact centres: Five predictions for 2018

The year ahead has been proclaimed the Year of the Dog, according to the Chinese zodiac. So will your contact centre take a leap forward in 2018 or be among those whimpering in the background? Here are five ways to tell ...

In many ways, 2018 is likely to give us more of the same: Increasing card-not-present transactions, soaring consumer expectations around service, and many organisations of all sizes having their data breached.

The difference is, these trends are likely to intensify, more events will be thrust into the public spotlight, and more companies are likely to be vilified for the tiniest lapse in service. Whether you fail or thrive in 2018 depends on how effectively you respond to growing threats and seize new opportunities.

Here are five predications for the year ahead:

#1: Customers have shorter fusesCustomers will become less tolerant of poor contact centre engagement in 2018. They know how today's tech should work — so will have less sympathy when service levels slide, brushing aside agents' apologies. Instead, more customers will post screen grabs and rants on social media as a knee-jerk reaction, perhaps waiting seconds rather than minutes before posting.

#2: Customers embrace self-serviceCustomers adore self-service when they experience the benefits: Time savings, greater control and extra 24x7 convenience. Of course, automated systems save you money too. It's a genuine win/win. More companies will act on this in 2018 across multiple industries.

If your IVR system has behaved badly in the past, then 2018 could be the year to turn it into your customers' best friend. Even the gruffest IVR can be radically redesigned to give customers the personal, self-service experience they desire. Embracing Visual IVR, you could deliver rich content on your IVR and then pushed to their mobiles, alongside special offers that boost sales. Customers will be impressed.

#3: Omni-Channel proves unstoppableMore organisations will recognise that they cannot dictate which channels customers use: People will do their own thing, when they want, shift channels and expect companies to join the dots between systems. Every interaction needs to be seamless — from web browsing to agent call-backs, from emails to Live Chat.

This presents a host of intricate technical challenges for contact centres. But leading customer engagement tools are now available to plug the gaps and stitch it all together in a near-magical, cost-effective way — that will increase sales too.

#4: Chatbots make a big comebackThe shadow cast by yesterday's clueless chatbots will fade quickly in 2018 — as a new breed of cyber agents step in to support contact centres increasingly. Chatbots will power 85% of customer service interactions by 2020 and the average person will have more conversations with bots than with their spouse, according to Gartner (1).

Tomorrow's bots will be connected with powerful knowledge bases that are ideal for handling simple, easy and repetitive tasks, lifting the load off real agents — but knowing exactly when to hand over to them. The human touch will still be important for customer choice and complex calls, so some agents will need to be upskilled for the task.

#5: Compliance pressures increaseAs the world customer engagement and transactions becomes more complex, industry bodies and governments will wade in increasingly — making tighter rules on data protection and setting the fines but leaving organisations to scrabble around for answers. GDPR and MiFID II will loom large in 2018. But, PCI DSS is essential as well as an effective process for helping businesses meet certain elements of GDPR and remains essential for any serious organisation taking card payments or handling sensitive data.

Are you on top of these five issues? If not, then put them on your boardroom agenda for early 2018. And if you need any help or advice, then contact Eckoh. We'd be glad to help.